The Battered Wife Syndrome or Top Ten Excuses not to Separate

“4. We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendents from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own—either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years—until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.

Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by White America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.” (From “The Muslim Program: What The Muslims Want,” back page of The Final Call. )

'The syndrome develops in response to a three-stage cycle found in domestic violence situations. First, tension builds in the relationship. Second, the abusive partner releases tension via violence, whilst blaming the victim for having caused the violence. Third, the violent partner makes gestures of contrition. However, the partner does not find the solution to avoid another phase of tension building and release, so the cycle repeats itself.'

This is what the Muslims who follow The Honorable Elijah Muhammad want and have been preaching to Black people in America for 80 years. The Nation of Islam has been preaching separation, while the Civil Rights advocates have been preaching integration. It has been almost 50 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964; however, in 2012 a White man can step to any Black man that he sees and just shoot him down, lynch him, or drag him behind a pickup truck and feel that he has done the White community a favor.

Why would Black people continue to march and pray for White folk to treat them better? It is because they refuse to accept that they will never be accepted by their open enemy. To stay in this type of abusive relationship is pure insanity. It is like an outsider looking at the face of a battered woman and telling her that she needs to leave her husband, but she refuses to let him go. This type of behavior has been labeled “the battered wife syndrome.”

The syndrome develops in response to a three-stage cycle found in domestic violence situations. First, tension builds in the relationship. Second, the abusive partner releases tension via violence, whilst blaming the victim for having caused the violence. Third, the violent partner makes gestures of contrition. However, the partner does not find the solution to avoid another phase of tension building and release, so the cycle repeats itself. The repetition of the violence, despite the abuser’s attempts to “make nice,” results in the abused partner feeling at fault for not preventing a repeat cycle of violence. Feeling both responsible for the violence and helpless to stop the violence, the despairing partner becomes depressed and passive. This learned depression, hopelessness and passivity make it difficult for the abused partner to marshal the resources and support system needed to leave.

This mirrors the life of Black people in America, who are treated like second-class citizens, shot down in the streets, railroaded in the courts, then paraded in the mass media to the world as deserving of such “battering.” Let’s look at our top ten list for symptoms of the battered wife syndrome and see how they relate to the condition of Black people in America, who refuse to accept the solution of separation that was given to us by The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and now through his National Representative, Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Black Community (BC): If rabble-rousers like Rev. Al Sharpton and Minister Farrakhan would stop demanding so much from White people, we may be able to get along with them. Programs like affirmative action are taking college seats and jobs from White people. Blacks should just learn how to fit in without being a nuisance.

BW: If I leave, he will kill me.

BC: You know that if we go off somewhere by ourselves away from White people, they are just going to bomb us like they did in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 or like they recently did in Iraq and Libya. Where can we go that’s safe?

BW: He will just follow me and mess up my next relationship.

BC: The White man’s got the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, spy planes and high-tech artillery. You saw what the FBI’s COINTELPRO did to all our Black organizations. He will send in agent provocateurs and have us killing each other like he did in the 1960s.

BW: I can’t make it without him, because I am ugly and stupid.

BC: Look at our young people dropping out of school. Look how we fail in math and science. We don’t know anything about running a nation or big businesses. How will we feed and clothe ourselves and where are we going to work? Who’s going to protect us from each other?

BW: I don’t want people to know that our marriage didn’t work.

BC: Separation would show that we could not make integration work. It would show that we did not take advantage of the opportunities that opened up for us. If I leave the big city and go back South to my family’s farm, it would show that I was a failure and could not make it in the city.

BW: I will lose too much if I leave now—freedom is too expensive.

BC: If we leave the big city, who is going to buy my home that I still owe on? At least I got a roof over my head. There is no telling what type of accommodations we will have to put up with if we set up our own towns. I don’t want to live like those people I see in Somalia and the rest of Africa.

BW: I am too old to start over. My best years are behind me.

BC: We have stuck it out this long. Why leave now? We got a Black president now. Things have got to get better. By the time we get things going right in a new nation, I will be dead.

BW: I don’t deserve a better life, for I have sinned.

BC: A lesson in the Nation of Islam asks: “Why does the devil keep our people apart from his social equality? Answer: Because he does not want us to know how filthy he is and all his affairs. He is afraid because when we learn about him, we will run him from among us.” However, when we went to his integrated high schools and colleges, we picked up all of his filthy ways. And instead of running him from among us, we delighted in his filth. Now we are just as immoral as the White man, so why would God want to protect us? We are so lost from God.

BW: The next relationship could turn out to be even worse.

BC: I don’t know if you have looked around recently, but Black leadership is just as selfish and cruel as White leadership. There are big I’s and little u’s in all the Black organizations that I have been a part of. Why should I leave a devil that I know, to be with a devil that I don’t know?

BW: Maybe this whooping was the last whooping.

BC: Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Kenneth Walker—the list of pain goes on and on. But maybe if we protest every time these things happen and stick together, we can stop the violence. Oh, I forgot: if we stick together, we can be labeled as a gang; and we can’t use the word “boycott” anymore because that’ll threaten White people, who might retaliate. But, again, we have a Black president. This shows that there are some good White people out there. We just have to teach our boys how to behave so that the bad White folks won’t gun them down.

The issue with the battered wife or subjugated Black community is a spiritual one. I heard a Black lawyer say that instead of demanding that the USDA give Black farmers back their land, they settled for $50,000, because “If Jesus came back, He could not get your land back.” In other words, the battered wife and the Black community do not believe in themselves or a God that can make the White man do right. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us of a God that rides on what’s called in the Bible “Ezekiel’s Wheel” that can destroy America in 12 hours. “Come out of her, my people…” There is a God that cares enough about us to defend us.